


On Saturday Mornings

by weaksauce



Category: Homestuck
Genre: walkie talkies are rad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 09:38:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15021830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weaksauce/pseuds/weaksauce
Summary: Dave's thrilling Saturday morning.feat. walkie talkies & saturday morning cartoons





	On Saturday Mornings

6:30 AM

The angular digital numbers of the little clock on the nightstand next to your bed confirm that it is, indeed, the buttcrack of dawn. Perfect. Absolutely. Perfect.

In the blessed cool-toned early morning light, you kick your sweaty sheets off of you hurriedly. They contort and ball by your feet, and you jump out of bed nimbly, clothed in nothing but your boxers and an oversized, slightly holey tee. You stick the landing like a goddamn perfect 10/10 gymnast before dropping down to all fours a little too roughly. Your bare knees scrape the gritty carpet fibers, and you're sure you'll have a rug burn later, but you've felt worse. You peer under your bed, searching. You sweep away some old Game Bros and a cornucopia of other insignificant shit used only for the purpose of concealing, until you finally spot it. Deftly, you scoop up the small black cloth bag from under your bed. Your coveted Saturday morning stash.

Clutching the bag close to your chest, you stand back up and pick your way through a veritable minefield of random stuff on the floor to get to the other side of your room. Quietly, you press your ear to the shoddily crafted piece of plywood you call a door.

You get a rush as you hear blissful nothingness from the other side. Hell fucking yes. It should probably be embarrassing that Saturday mornings excite you to the extent of getting goosebumps, but you're too thrilled to care. A fraction of a smile pulls at your mouth muscles, but you're quick to force it back down so as to not build up your hopes too high.

Tucking the bag under one arm, you hold your breath as you open your flimsy door cautiously. The latch sticks a little, and you have to turn the doorknob hard and wrench the door open before it gives in to your demands. It swings open soundlessly because of the WD-40 you skillfully applied the day before--the WD-40 you apply every Friday night in preparation.

Your unshaded eyes instantly gravitate toward the floor directly in front of your doorway to see...

No note. Just cheapass stained carpet. Fuck yeah. One of the last hurtles is cleared.

You take the first step out of your room and into the small hallway leading into the living room. This is going so smoothly. Wait. Don't think that. Don't jinx yourself.

You continue stealthily, setting your bag down on the sofa as you make it into the living room. Looking to your brother's door at the end of the hall on the opposite side of the living room, you notice that it's firmly closed. You count to ten, and it remains shut. The apartment is still.

You gracelessly tip over your black cloth bag of Saturday essentials onto the couch. Its contents spill out onto the faded reddish cushions, settling into the small valleys between them. You look over your loot, glancing furtively up to your brother's room one more time before starting the routine you're lucky enough to observe religiously once a week.

A spare bottle of apple juice, along with a small carton of milk and travel-size box of cereal that you'd nicked from the breakfast line at school on Friday morning and stuffed into your bag covertly are splayed out across the sofa. Checking your refrigerator or pantry for such luxuries would be fruitless, so you nab them like clockwork every Friday morning.

But that isn't even the best part. The hero of the day, the shining piece of gadgetry that's got you all worked up is laying there next to them. You pick up the black plastic walkie talkie slowly, running your fingers over the chunky buttons on the side and looking the antenna up and down. It's probably old school or outdated, but to you it's cool as hell.

Your techie friend, Sollux, had tuned it in to the right channel, three walkie talkies in total all sharing the same wavelength. He said that all you need to do to make first contact with the other two is press the button. “Idiot proof.” Seeing as Bro refuses to get a home phone, this is really the only way you can connect with your friend outside of the confines of school. You'd never admit it, but you're fucking eager to hear your friend’s voice in your free time, to actually sort of hang out.

Not that kicking it with your bro isn’t chill, but being able to talk to your friends once in a while is something to look forward to. And Saturday morning is the perfect time for it. Your bro usually works late on Friday nights doing whatever it is that he actually does, which results in him being conked out pretty solidly until noon. That gives you a golden slice of time once a week to watch cartoons semi-ironically without being interrupted by puppets, mind games, or strife, as long as you keep the volume down.

You fall back onto the sofa in a way that’s gentle enough to keep the springs from squeaking and heavy enough to be satisfying, glancing at the clock on top of the TV. 6:38. Gentle morning light streams in the windows, and it’s already sweltering. Your back feels slightly sticky with sweat in the humidity-heavy living room, and you know that you’ll have to peel the thin fabric from the velveteen material of the couch later. The window air conditioner broke last week, and guess who hadn’t gotten it fixed. Again, your bro is awesome, but sometimes you need a break. Sometimes.

Stretching your legs out, you rest your feet on the coffee table like you own the damn place and reach over to grab the remote while still palming the walkie talkie in your other hand. You switch on the TV, instantly jamming your finger onto the volume down button to decrease it to the level of barely hearable by human ears; your hearing will adjust to it eventually. You change the channel from the news to actual quality content and throw the remote to the opposite arm of the couch. You know the Saturday morning lineup of channel 4 by heart, and you’re sure that you won’t need to change the channel any time soon.

TV set, you guess it’s time to start screwing around with this walkie talkie that you’ve been overzealously holding in your hand for the past five minutes. You glance at the clock above the TV again as cartoon violence attacks your retinas with its own brand of physics-defying shenanigans. 6:39. You’re pretty sure the other two dudes might give you shit for trying out your new means of communication so early in the morning, but your left pointer finger is getting trigger-happy. You press the button with a small static blip. You press the button three more times, just to test it out. The machine feels weighty in your hand, and pressing the button gives you just enough resistance. What a fucking well-made button.

Done admiring the craftsmanship of the button, you guess that it’s time to attempt talking into it now… When a hunger pang reminds you that you should probably eat your ill-gotten cereal first. You’re totally not nervous about talking into the thing or putting it off or anything. It’s really the opposite of that. You’re probably too comfortable with the idea of waking your friend up, or waking up anyone except your bro who might want to give you attention really, but the other guy who has the third walkie talkie… Well, you’d be lying if you said he was your friend as well. Sollux and you are school-friend-close, but the other dude in possession of the third walkie talkie is his friend; it’s kind of a friend-of-a-friend situation, and you’re not entirely sure what to expect.

You continue totally not wimping out on using the walkie talkie by chowing down on your cereal, dousing it in milk and eating it directly from the foil-colored bag, because bowls or spoons are damn-near impossible to find in your house, and savoring every last drop of your fucking scrumptious apple juice while watching your cartoons. The room is only getting hotter, and you thank all of the higher deities that you have the nectar of the gods to quench your throat, lest you suffer from heat stroke. You spread out on the couch so that none of your limbs are overlapping, as you know from experience that places where they do only form nasty pocket-lakes of sweat.

6:58. It’s almost 7:00 now. 7:00 isn’t that early, right?

Fuck it.

You press and hold down the button on the walkie talkie, this time summoning up the moxie to raise it to your lips and talk into it. “Yo,” you say, voice hushed enough to not make your bro stir, but loud enough to sound confident. “It’s your Saturday morning radio host coming to you live from the living room, fucking hotter than all get out in here. Like, I actually want to get out because it’s too hot, but I can’t because outside is hotter than inside anyway. Hot enough to fry eggs on the damn sidewalk, my bros. Looking at the forecast today, and the thermometer just says ‘lmao’ like wow, it’s hot as Jesus’ dick in here, and I’m not going to get into how much I’m sweating. Uh. Next, up is traffic, so stay tuned, I guess.” Welp. You finally tried it out. A few seconds pass, and you’re doubt at receiving a reply is rising. Until you realize that your finger is still on the button. Oops. You release it, only to immediately face a barrage of verbal vomit potentially even less sensical than your own.

“Fucking Christ, are you finally done being the most giant dicksock known to man? Don’t you even know that you have to take your finger off the button for other people to be able to respond? Fuck me, what time is it, even? And who the fuck do you think you are to have the privilege of jostling me awake with your idiotic spew of horseshit giddy-ass Al Roker-sounding fucking… You know what, nevermind. I’m not even wasting another word on this. Not even going to give you the pleasure of me constructing an elaborate metaphor about you. Fuck this, and fuck you. I’m going back to bed.” The voice sounds gruff and half asleep, seeing as it isn’t Sollux’s, you use your powers of deduction to guess that it’s his friend. You almost feel bad about ‘jostling him awake.’ Almost.

“Shit, man, didn’t mean to wake you up. I mean, it really seems like you woke up on the grouchy as shit side of the bed, so I’ll let you get back to that then. The sleeping thing,” you say, making sure to promptly remove your finger from the button this time.

“Sollux, how the fuck do I turn this thing off?” comes the voice again. In the absence of a response, you hear several small beeps as impatient fingers try to figure out the machine, probably pressing the button repeatedly.

“You know what they say about those who press the same button multiple times and expect different results,” you say. “Over.”

“I have no idea what moronic sayings people like you have about pressing buttons, and I have no desire to know. Just stop talking so I can fucking sleep.”

“You got it, dude… Over and out, or whatever,” you say bluntly, setting the walkie talkie on the cushions next to you and trying to get back into binging your favorite cartoons. It seems like Sollux hasn’t woken up yet, and this friend is apparently in no mood to put up with your shit, so that settles that. Operation: try to use the walkie talkie seems to be at a standstill for now. Maybe later when people are actually awake.

About ten minutes pass before you hear the walkie talkie spark to life again.

“Can’t even get back to sleep because it’s too fucking hot…” it grumbles at you, voice thick with the static of a connection that’s almost out of range. You scoop the black plastic box back into your hands, fingers getting the hang of pressing down the button and doing so quickly and without your express consent.

“Damn, bro, I feel your pain. Like I said, hotter than Jesus’ dick here, too. AC doesn’t even work over here, seriously,” you reply, letting go of the button.

“Fuck, at least I have a fan,” he says, and it looks like you got this angry sucker looking on the bright side of life. What an accomplishment. “You’re Dave, right? Dave Stringer, or something stupid like that.”

You almost spit out a mouthful of apple juice at that, but you recover like a pro. No need to waste the precious liquid. You keep watching your cartoons, only half-focused on your conversation. “Yeah, Dave Stringer, that’s me. Some call me String Bean for short,” you say. “I’m a big deal in the underground rap scene. It’s actually kind of embarrassing that you haven’t heard of String Bean, I mean, like damn. Didn’t know people like that even existed.”

“Are you at all aware of how much of an asshole you sound like right now? I would ask how you even managed to get one of these walkie talkies, but Sollux always had a shitty choice in friends, so I’m not that surprised. Also, String Bean isn’t even shorter than Stringer; they’re both two goddamn syllables.”

“Aren’t you his friend?” you ask, pressing and releasing the button second nature at this point, muscle memory doing the work as you devote your brain power to the animation on the screen.

“Yeah, but I have shitty taste in friends, too,” he responds. “And Sollux, the useless lump on the ass of a toad that he is, is obviously the shittiest possible choice I could make for a friend, except you maybe.”

“Are you saying that we’re friends? Also, your logic is that you’re friends with Sollux because of your shitty choice in friends, and he’s friends with me because of his shitty choice in friends? Man, this theory has a lot of layers, like a goddamn wedding cake of who has the shittier choice in friends up in here. Next time on Cake Boss, who has the shittier choice in friends? Is it Sollux, or his unnamed friend? Who will be eliminated this week?”

“Is your mouth just a nonstop tap of nonsensical shit? Hell no, I just meant figuratively that you might be the worse choice in friend, which creates some kind of weird paradox of who has shittier taste…” A brief pause. “And Cake Boss isn’t even an elimination-style show.”

“You got me there,” you say. “Your name was something to do with cats, right?”

“…Karkat,” he says after a beat.

“Strider,” you say.

“Right, fuck,” he replies. “What did I say, Stringer?”

“Yes, I think that’s exactly the name you used, yeah.”

“Strider?” he confirms.

“Uh-huh,” you say, interest in the conversation building for some reason as the words lessen. You find yourself racking your brain to remember if you’ve ever actually met this guy before. You’re sure you’ve seen him hanging out with Sollux in passing, but he’s not someone that you’ve ever gotten a good look at or ever really paid attention to. What did he look like? You remember unruly dark hair, but that’s about it.

“Well, Strider, nice to meet you I guess,” comes the voice again. You’re completely blindsided. Did this guy finally have his coffee or what?

“Yeah, uh, it’s a pleasure, Karkat,” you say, realizing that you’ve completely zoned out from your cartoons to try to scan the depths of your brain for some recollection of what his face looks like. And to try to figure out why he’s suddenly being downright civil.

Your contemplation is broken, however, by a large-scale clamorous as hell animated explosion that sends characters flying every which way. Shit. It’s too loud. Your hands quickly drop the walkie talkie and race to the remote to mute the TV, but it’s too late.

It’s then that you hear something more dangerous than a hundred cartoon explosions. A shifting noise from your bro’s room. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You start gathering up your Saturday morning loot as fast as you can, right arm sweeping the now-empty apple juice bottle, milk carton, and mini cereal box back into the black canvas bag and swinging it onto your shoulder in one movement. You grab the walkie talkie, hand groping it, desperately searching for an off button or—

“Are you watching cartoons?” the voice comes from the staticky speaker of the black box in your hand, too loud. Fuck, it’s all too loud. You fumble with the remote control, turning the TV back to the channel it was on originally and setting the remote back on its plush sofa arm throne. 

There aren’t anymore sounds from your bro’s room, but you know from experience that that’s no indication of your good fortune. Giving the living room one more hurried once-over, you hightail it back to your room, only daring to speak again once your door is firmly closed.

“Gotta go, bro,” you say, trying to sound disinterested but hearing your voice crack.

“Whatever,” comes Karkat’s voice from the other end, radiating a mild frustration with you. He continues, but finally having found the volume knob on the side—it looks so fucking obvious now that your heart has stopped racing at 1,000 bpm—you stuff the walkie talkie into the black cloth bag, dropping to your knees and sliding the bag as far as you can under your bed before shoving all of your worthless coverup crap in front of it again. You’ll sneak the trash to school on Monday and throw it away there, as usual. As for the walkie talkie, you’re not sure when you’ll have another chance to use it.

Even though the guy on the other end—Karkat—sounded like an ass, you find yourself wanting to talk to him again sometime. You feel, for the second time this morning, something akin to hopefulness. You immediately try to quash it down once more, not wanting to get hopeful for anything until you’re completely certain that your bro won’t annihilate you, or god forbid break the walkie talkie you’d been entrusted with because someone actually wanted to keep consistently in contact with you. But the annoying tendrils of hopefulness have wrapped their tiny suckers around your brain, and, in spite of a potential impending strife, you feel a grin spread across your face.


End file.
